MiWon Kwon and Steven Wright « islandsofla.org

MiWon Kwon and Steven Wright

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ILA is an experiment. One of the ideas it experiments with is the place of “cultural theory” in the practical sphere. Along these lines, some posts on this blog will highlight questions, thinkers, challenges, artists, projects, theories that relate to the way ILA is approaching this.

Here are two:

MIWON KWON (from One Place After Another)
“Certainly, site-specific art can lead to the unearthing of repressed histories, help provide greater visibility to maginalized groups and issues, and initiate the re(dis)covery of “minor” places so far ignored by the dominant culture. But inasmuch as the current socioeconomic order thrives on the (artificial) production and (mas) consumption of difference (for difference sake), the siting of art in “real” places can also be a means to extract the social and historical dimensions of these places in order to variously serve the thematic drive of an artist, satisfy institutional demographic profiles, or fulfill the fiscal needs of a city. ”

STEVEN WRIGHT
Beyond contemplative value: operative value

[There exist] art practices with low coefficients of artistic visibility, raising the possibility of a new status for art in the absence of artworks, authorship or spectatorship. Envisaging art in terms of competence rather than performance, process rather than outcome, poses a distinct challenge for the art world because in losing its visibility as such, art has only its history to fall back on. For practices whose self-understanding
stems from the visual arts tradition, not to mention for the normative institutions that govern it, the problem cannot be merely wished away for if it is not visible, art eludes all control, all prescription, in short, all ³policing². If ever more artists seem prepared to deliberately impair their work¹s coefficient of artistic visibility, is it not in order to give teeth to the sort of consensus-busting power to which art often lays claim?

In contexts often far removed from art-specific spaces and time, the past few years have witnessed the emergence of a broad range of such practices, which, in spite of certain affinities and indeed, in some cases, of undeniable kinship, can only be described as art-related rather than art-specific activities, often laying no particular claim to art status. In many cases, these forms of symbolic production, implicitly questioning and even shattering the borders of art, live up to art¹s promises far more effectively than those practices upheld and underwritten by current artistic conventions. Yet the status of these art-related activities, has never been the object of sustained scrutiny (they are usually written off as conceptual leftovers of the seventies). Even contemporary aesthetic philosophy tends to invoke them as evidence only insofar as they are predefined as not art, in a hasty endeavor to again secure the borderlines of what is conventionally known as art. (Here is an other essay he has wrote: Users and Usership of Art: Challenging Expert Culture)

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2 responses to “MiWon Kwon and Steven Wright”

Ismail Farouk January 18th, 2009 at 16:52

The value of practical experimentation in the public realm cannot be understated. For me the importance of ILA is that it provides people with an opportunity to think practically about public space and the changes we are experiencing. How does what you perceive whilst sitting on a traffic island influence your understanding of the world?

[Reply]
Jerome January 27th, 2009 at 19:21

There is a jargon in theory that is tiresome; it has become simultaneously weird/impenetrable AND conventional/cliched. In your own prose, I think the opening sentence is marked by it with the expression “announces itself.” How about just “is an experiment” or if necessary “is intended as an experiment.” [suggestions taken and texted above reflects that].

I’m going to bitch because the second passage you cite (Wright) is redolent with it:

In contexts often far removed from art-specific spaces and time, the past few years have witnessed the emergence of a broad range of such practices, which, in spite of certain affinities and indeed, in some cases, of undeniable kinship, can only be described as art-related rather than art-specific activities, often laying no particular claim to art status.

This really is not such an awe-inspiring idea, and there simply MUST be simpler, more honest, less wind-bag ways of saying it, without those ghastly, foppish, coy little flourishes (and indeed, in some cases etc).

This isn’t your fault, of course. It’s the “house style” of theory. I can’t help feeling that it’s starting to sounds old and tiresome. I loved the remark of a French journalist when asked why the French preferred Obama to McCain, since the latter was an internationalist. McCain, she said in a delicious accent, “seems so last century.” I am starting to feel the same about the theory style.

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